We’re talking about three cars — Pavel Grinberg’s 1988 Acura, Joe Bonilla’s new Ford Expedition and Robert Morris’ 1989 Grand Prix — that the Giuliani administration seized last year from suspected drunken drivers who, it turned out, were never proven to have been drunk.

Yes, all three were cleared in a court of law.

So, naturally, the men got their cars back, right?

Gosh, you’re naive.

The mayor’s seizure policy was announced amid fanfare early last year as a way of offering a dramatic disincentive to driving drunk.

As a public-relations move, the mayor’s aggressive seizures have had an impact. Police statistics show fewer people are driving drunk since the policy went into effect.

Activists had initially opposed the policy on the grounds that people (and cars) are innocent until proven guilty, but most New Yorkers assumed that if the driver were found not guilty of the criminal charge of drunken driving, the car would be returned.

After all, we trust the Giuliani administration to do the right thing, right? Well, our trust was misguided.

“This whole thing is crazy,” said Morris, who was arrested in February — but was cleared Oct. 6 because cops skipped every court date. (Apparently, it was either that or be forced to lie under oath that Morris was drunk when they know he wasn’t.)

So on Oct. 6, the city should have thrown out its civil case against Morris and apologized. But it did not.

Grinberg’s case proceeded similarly. He was arrested for DWI on Feb. 21, 1999, but his case wasn’t heard until Jan. 28, 2000 — whereupon it was dismissed because the arresting officer had lied in another DWI case.

Again, the city not only didn’t give back the car — but it is still going after Grinberg in Civil Court.

What a great system; the city can’t even make its criminal charges stick, yet it’s still pursuing civil cases. It’s like we’re getting two police-state abuses for the price of one.

City lawyers, who have defended Mayor Giuliani through thin (the illegal closing of the City Hall steps) and thinner (the Brooklyn Museum dung dust-up), say there’s a good reason for this legal double-jeopardy.

“Every day, a significant number of criminal cases are dismissed on procedural grounds having nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of the person,” said Steve Fishner, the mayor’s criminal-justice coordinator.

“As a matter of safety, we owe it to the public to pursue the cases in civil court.”

To bolster his position, Fishner likened men like Grinberg, Morris and Bonilla to O.J. Simpson — who was aquitted of brutally slashing to death his wife and her friend, only to be found liable in a subsequent civil trial.